Would gay marriage undermine the exalted status of heterosexual marriage?

[Pruni]

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Actually dp (rather unromantically) said 'if you want to get married we will' it's me that doesn't want to....

I very much wanted to get married and I wanted to give a formal comitment to my dh in front of friends and family. I have no probelm with gay couples doing the same.

the thing that de values marrage imo is people entering it thinking that they can get out if they have some probelms. I realise that divorse has its place but some people seem to go intomarrage with little thought about the real comittment they should be making.

Pants! I wrote a really long post and accidentally deleted it. Find this fascinating and will come back later.

www, damn! Annoying whan that happens!

"Do you think marriage will be devalued if gay people are allowed to marry?"

Yes and No. I don't think 'marriages' as such would be devalued - but I don't agree with gay marriage.

"Do you feel that the relative ease of divorce is a good thing or not? Why?" and "Do you think people have a rose-tinted view of marriage and are less prepared to work at it these days?"

No - I don't think it's a good thing, people are all to ready to 'throw the towel' in as soon as they hit a rocky patch these days. No-one ever said marriage was 'easy' (if they read the vows they said they may remember it's mentioned in them ) but people these days seem to think it is. I don't believe marriage is something to be taken lightly, and going back to the first question I firmly believe that marriage is supposed to be between 'man and woman' 'Till death do us part'.

"If we went back to the days when divorce was difficult, what do you think would be the effect on women's lives, if any?"

Some of them might have to make an effort to save their marriage instead of just letting is slip away from under their fingers. Don't think there'd be any 'real' effect TBH.

I have heard of studies stating the children from married couples do better IN GENERAL and I believe this is down to the fact that if you're not married there's less 'security' - even with 'easier' divorce it still takes quite a lot of effort to end an marriage - a simple live together relationship just involves one partner walking out the door (ok I know its more complicated than that with CSA etc etc but you get my drift).

I was supposed to play for a wedding at church last year..........they'd been living together for 14yrs, and had 3 children together. It didn't happen - as they split up 1 month before the wedding ! What an effect it must have had on the children........I belive that if they'd been married before (or at least soon afterwards) having children they would have made more of an effort when things got 'sticky'

Right probably P*ssed 3/4 of MN'er's off - off to cook dinner now shall respond later

and replaced by a purely religious marriage for people who are actually religious, but which doesn't have any legal weight,????

WHAT! Are you suggesting that people who get married in church because they BELIEVE in the sacred side of marriage shouldn't have any 'legal' standing as a married couple afterwards????

Yes. That the religious marriage be the religious union, with everything that that means for people who are religious, and is between the couple, their god, congregation and church.

THEN they also enter into the same 'civil' partnership which takes care of all the secular and legal aspects of the partnership.

I don't see that as discriminating against people for whom a religous marriage is important.

Many people's 'spiritual' marriages aren't recognised now, and they have to go to a registry office for a civil wedding. It is discriminatory if 9as now) SOME religious weddings have all the legal stsus of the civil wedding, but others do not.

this thread is assuming marriage is something to aspire to!

Gwenick - you don't agree with gay marriages presumably because for you, marriage is a religious thing and your church does not encompass a gay union for marriage?

My solution would enable religious people to celebrate and take vows in their way, whilst everybody would have the option of an equla legal partnership.

In any case, gwenick, a registrar from the registry office comes in to do the legal bit in the vestry, don't they? It's completely different from the bit at the alter. if you skipped off after the alter but befoire the signing in the vestry, it wouldn't be a 'legal' marriage, anyway.

And Gwenick - unless you know lots of intimate details of that divorcing couple's life, (and maybe you do, so..)it's outrageous to assume that they carelessly threw in the towel because of some 'stickiness'. We unmarried parents do care passionately about how our children feel, too, you know! They may only have agreed to get married as a way to try and hold together a relationship against all odds. A lot has to happen for people to be married 14 years and have 3 children - how long have you been married?

"Do you think marriage will be devalued if gay people are allowed to marry?"

No, I don't. Gay people atm are unable to show their committment to each other, if that's what they want, so there should be some mechanism for that.
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"Do you feel that the relative ease of divorce is a good thing or not? Why?"

Is divorce that easy? I don't really have enough knowledge of it to make a judgement. Although,I know soemone who left her dh less than a year after their wedding - I think there should be a law that you have to return all wedding pressies if your marriage doesn't last at least two years! Maybe marriage should be harder to to do, not divorce.
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"Do you think people have a rose-tinted view of marriage and are less prepared to work at it these days?"

Yes, see my comment above. I think people split up for more trivial sounding reasons nowadays. People also don't seem to regard themselves as two halves of a whole in marriage eg keeping money in separate acc's, divvying up bills etc. I think the instant gratification and disposable society we live in has changed expectations.
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"If we went back to the days when divorce was difficult, what do you think would be the effect on women's lives, if any?"

I wouldn't like to see divorce made more diffucult, tbh.
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"And lastly, he is vehement that studies exist showing that children from families where the parents have a marriage certificate are statistically more likely to do better than children from families where there are two unmarried parents. Have you ever heard this? I find it hard to believe."

Yes, I've read this type of study but I don't recall the basis, unless it's that unmarrieds are more likely to split up and therefore children are brought up in more poverty?
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One thing that I find a bit sad about most of my nieces not being married is that I've either never met the fathers of their babies or there's been no chance to 'officially' welcome the dads into our family. But that's just me being sentimental, I guess.

I know of a couple where they split up after 6 months of being marriage. The 'wife' didn't seem to realise that it wasn't going to be a honeymoon non stop.....and she realy was this shallow. She onlt thought about the 'day' and not the marriage she was entering into.

I agree that it might be useful to make it harder to marry

THEN they also enter into the same 'civil' partnership which takes care of all the secular and legal aspects of the partnership.

Do they have to pay for that too? So they have to pay for TWO Ceremonies??? Why should I have to organise TWO events to commit to my husband for life while non believers only have to organise one???

registrar from the registry office comes in to do the legal bit in the vestry, don't they?

No - the vicar does that bit..........

Gwenick - you don't agree with gay marriages presumably because for you, marriage is a religious thing and your church does not encompass a gay union for marriage?

Quite true - I'm quite happy for them to live together, but MARRIAGE for me has a 'sacred' meaing and therefore "Marriage" isn't an option for them (in my eyes).

And before anyone says I'm bigotted let me tell you abouut my last night out in Edinburgh before going to Zim.............actually perhaps I'd better not

Blu - they weren't divorcing - they were splitting up. I know for FACT they weren't getting married to try and 'patch things up'. Everything had been going VERY well, but as frequently happens before weddings (no matter what they mean to you - life at home got very stresseful - and they decided that they couldn't possibly live together if all they were going to do was argue

I've been married 5 1/2yrs

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'The vicar does that it' - oh, every time I have been at a wedding, there was someone from the registry office in the verstry....aha! penny drops - that is because my family are Methodist, a church which isn't deemed fit to bestow legal marriages on their own - and yes, those marrying couples DID have to pay for the registrar in addition to the church bit.

The only basis of my point is to dis-entwangle the religious, spiritual aspects of marriage from the legal/secular aspects. To be honest, I think that makes religious weddings more religious, iyswim. atm people having hindhu or moslem marriages have to pay for two ceremonies, religious and registry office - but it is anyone's choice as to how far they go or how much celebrating goes on at each stage.

Separating out these aspects also enables gay couples, and others not recognised within certain religious marriages, the chance nevertheless to have a legal family partnership on the same terms as other couples who have made a legal partnership committment to each other. The basis of our current marriage laws in religious belief is, imo, the cause of all this messy half legislation - certificates for gay couples, not available to co-habiting heterosexuals etc etc.

re the splitting-up couple - LOL - so, were it not for the stresses of arranging a wedding, and the realisation that they were going to have to say 'til death do us part', they might have stayed together?

Honestly, I DO intend to stay with DP til death etc, and certainly until we are past the stage when our separation would cause distress to anyone else (like when DS is about 45 ), but the idea of standing up and making a promise to do something that I can't gurantee to keep, or keep in any real happiness, would fill me with panic - or at least a nagging sense of hypocrisy.

And I have complete respect for people for whom god is a part of their marriage - and sort of feel they should be free of people who merely 'endure' a non-believed religious angle just because it is part of marriage as we know it, now. i know it can be a civil ceremony, but the definition of marriage, one man one woman, is based on the christian vision of marriage. that is why it can't simply make the logical step of including gay marriages.

So we need to step back and start from scratch.

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You can't have her: she's mine. And her DP's and my DP's and Batters' and Batters' DP's as well, of course.

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now, blu, the definition of marriage, one man, one woman is not exclusively christian, is it?

i don't want to marry you btw...

i dont think marriage is an exalted state. i think that is a very christian viewpoint.
marriage is a formal contract of intent. just like a business contract. it gives both parites certain rights and priviliges, and a get out clause.
but then i m a muslim, and in islam divorce is easy peasy. all the man has to do is say i divorce you. and all the woman has to do is say to a court she wants a divorce.( a woman in the time of the prophet mohammed was granted a divorce by him because she said she didnt like the was he looked!) assets are not joint and the marriage contract itself states what the women is oowed in the event of a divorce. all very very clearcut. and the kids are the financial responsibiiity of the father, or his brothers etc till they are adults.